Oh Baseball, Where Art Thou?

Photo Credit: Inc.Com

February is an awful month for Bay Area sports fans.  The adrenaline-packed NFL season has finally come to an end.  Hockey is in progress, slowly but surely making its march towards the playoffs.  Basketball season is stumbling along clumsily, still hung over from an extended lockout.  One big piece is missing.

Hurry up and get here, Giants baseball.

It's like the best soap opera for a stay at home mother - it's on nearly every day.  You fall in love with that same cast of characters and the drama that ensues.  After a long day of work (or even occasionally during the work day) you can count on Giants baseball to be that distraction from you're problems.  For at least three hours you can find temporary solace in the slow, steady action that baseball provides.

On a Tuesday night when there isn't much to do, you can jump out on a lark and take a trip to China Basin.  With your Giants hat on and a glove in your hand, you can head out to the yard and take it all in.  Even if the game is a snoozer you've spent an evening taking in the sunset on the gorgeous edge of San Francisco's port harbor.

Then there are those weekend day games, sitting in the center field bleachers with the sun beating down. You may have to spend 5 dollars on a watered down lemonade to quench your thirst, but at least you've wasted away another lazy weekend afternoon; one of those where there isn't much better to do.  Maybe you even play hooky from work to catch a Thursday matinee at the park, reminding you of those days as a kid when even your parents thought school was secondary.

There is something mentally soothing about baseball.  The plethora of statistical breakdowns, the methodical nature of scoring runs or collecting outs.  The familiar sounds of Kruk and Kuip or Miller and Flem.  The din of the chattering crowd hanging in the background.  The routine that gets deeply engrained by 162 games of Giants hardball.

In the process, Giants fans will hope for a return to the euphoria we felt in the Fall of 2010.  When the season began, it was just like all the others.  It slowly built to a crescendo and ended with madness.  A city was united - a World Series championship was the prize.

I've said it before - sports are a beautiful distraction - but there is no distraction more consistent, more comfortable, more nostalgic than baseball season.  I love the sensory burnout that football or playoff hockey provides, but sometimes sports should be relaxing.  However anything else, whether its regular season hockey or professional golf, just leaves me feeling empty inside, which explains why February seems to drag on forever.  I need baseball to hurry up and get here already.  I need baseball to save me.